Estimates of Agreement Between Three Low-cost and One High-cost Bioelectrical Impedance Analyzers using Classical and...

The aim of this study was to determine the concordance between the estimates of three low-cost and one high-cost electrical bioimpedance equipment (BIA) in classical and contemporary dancers. Participation in the study included 28 subjects (15 men and 13 women) 18 to 35 years old, who perform classical and/or modern dance, thrice weekly, from 60 to 120 min per session, for 10 years or more. Those who presented any disease, consumed drugs, supplements or multivitamins; had prostheses, surgical metal parts or pacemakers, had problems maintaining the correct anatomical positions for taking measurements, and pregnant women were excluded. Their body composition was determined with 3 low-cost BIA equipment (OMRON HBF-306C, SKULPT CHISEL and BEURER BF 1000) and one high-cost equipment (SECA mBCA 515). The results indicated that in men, SKULTP in its "complete" modality had the highest agreement with SECA (CCC=0.73, 95% CI=0.46-0.88) for body fat percentage (%BF); in women, OMRON in its "normal" modality had the highest agreement with SECA (CCC=0.85, 95% CI=0.62-0.94) for %BF; while BEURER had poor concordances (CCC=0.86-0.03) for the rest of the estimates in its different modalities, in both sexes. It is concluded that the lower cost equipment (SKULPT and OMRON) were the most consistent with SECA for %BF in normal weight dancers. BEURER had the lowest agreements with SECA, in all its modalities, as well as inconsistent estimates for all parameters. Therefore, there was no relationship between the cost of the low-cost impedance equipment and its agreement with those of a high-cost one.